


we all fall down.

by benziplavi



Series: we all fall down. [2]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-23
Updated: 2020-12-23
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:08:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28258191
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/benziplavi/pseuds/benziplavi
Summary: A civil war between the Olympians split the Pantheon and their children into two rival armies: The Loyalists, who sided with Zeus, and The Rebels who stood with Poseidon instead. When humanity crumbled as a result of the Divine War, the new fiery wasteland that once was Greece forced the few remaining humans to live in fear of whatever unholy horrors hid around every corner.From among the rubble, a hero, a chosen son of Hermes, was said to rise and take the fate of humanity into his own hands. He was supposed to fix the mistakes of those before him, but...Cameron isn't exactly a fan of the "hero" role.
Series: we all fall down. [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2073678





	1. prologue: 02/07/2018

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After stopping his son from taking his own life, Hermes returned to Olympus. The conversation he had with Zeus was one he'd grown _very_ tired of.
> 
> [ tw for a mentioned suicide attempt ]

Olympus was crumbling.

The walls stood strong and the walkways were sturdy, but distrust and paranoia ran rampant like wild dogs. Seeds of doubt sprouted into hateful trees that grew spiteful fruit from their branches and burned the bitter tongues of those who dared to eat it, yet the gods favored no other food.

When the gods couldn't trust themselves, how were mortals ever expected to?

Zeus stood atop his stony balcony, dark eyes glinting in the dim light. Electricity bounced in his irises as something split the mass of gloomy clouds far below the mountain, leaving strong gusts of wind in its wake. He knew it would only take a few seconds for the source of the wind to arrive, and speedy footsteps skidded to a halt behind him a few moments later. _Right on schedule,_ he thought.

"Why, Hermes, you're back early," said the king, tone dripping with mock surprise. "How was your visit?"

The messenger scoffed. "As if you're really as shocked as you sound." His tone, though laced with venom, held sadness buried deep beneath it. He crossed his arms over his chest. "It went as well as I expected it to."

"And how had you expected it to go?"

Behind him, Hermes fell silent, but Zeus didn't need to see him to know his lips had pulled themselves into a thin line. The angry silence was one he knew all too well.

"Come on," Hermes began, voice sharper than it previously had been moments prior, "the almighty Zeus doesn't know the answer to that? I'm shocked."

"Easy, son. You know I wouldn't intentionally anger you."

He wouldn't want to, truly. Perhaps it was intrusive curiosity or genuine interest, but something about Hermes' predicament intrigued him. It was exciting to see how he handled the situation, though the initial thrill quickly faded once Hermes grew sick of the game.

"You were singing a different tune seventeen years ago."

Zeus' brows raised as he turned his head to see his son join his side on the balcony. "It's been seventeen years since I sent him away?"

Hermes' lip twitched with the urge to form a scowl. There were buried emotions and unmentioned issues, yet Hermes said nothing about them. "It's his birthday today." For once, Zeus held his tongue to let him continue. "And I can tell you're upset with me, but your skepticism of that damn prophecy won't stop me from caring for him. Cameron... He's still just a child."

Zeus sighed, annoyed by his son's defiance. "He's _your_ child, Hermes. You should be taking this more seriously."

"And yet **you** are the only one who has a problem with him," Hermes snapped, furious eyes darting upwards to meet Zeus' own. "He was a child yet you found him _'untrustworthy',_ you claimed he _'made you feel uneasy',_ and you banished him because you didn't like what the Oracle said. Tell me, father: What kind of king is scared of a child?"

"And what normal child holds such strength? How was I to know she was telling the truth? You saw how the Oracle fumbled her words." Zeus countered with ease. "Would you have preferred I ignore the signs? Would it have pleased you if I turned a blind eye? Come now, Hermes, you saw what he was capable of doing with those illusions. He was only a few months old, yet he wrought chaos upon Olympus, upon us. I can't imagine what he could do had he grown up here."

"I haven't a clue what he would be like if he stayed here. But I do know that he nearly died down _there."_ Hermes was excellent at faking a neutral expression, but nature itself couldn't be fooled. His anger directly coerced the wind into aggressively swirling around the both of them. It forced Zeus to sway on his feet a little, but he managed to remain stoic as the herald continued to push the issue. "But still, you are unbothered. Are you truly so heartless?"

"There is no need for such drama, Hermes. You know be wouldn't have died. Only a god can kill another god."

"But nothing out there is stopping a god from taking their _own_ life, now is there?" Zeus didn't answer, and Hermes took that as a minor victory in the grand scheme of things. "Had I not shown up, my son would be dead and it would all be over. Or is that what you wanted?"

"Of course not. I'm not as cruel as you seem to think I am."

Neither of them spoke for a long moment, and the only sounds keeping it from being silent were the sharp whistles of the wind and the mindless tapping of Zeus' fingers on the railing.

After a long, tense moment, Hermes dared to speak again.

"The selfish ones never win, father." Hermes turned to walk away, but Zeus' hand shot out to catch his wrist. There was more he wanted to say, more problems to discuss, but deep down, neither of them wanted to keep talking. When Hermes yanked his wrist out of the king's grasp, there was no second attempt to grab him. Despite Zeus' fury and Hermes' spite, they had entered a conversational stalemate yet again.

"You know just as well as I do how this will turn out." He stormed away, but once he had a foot outside the door, Hermes looked over his shoulder and noted the snarl on Zeus' lips. "You've heard what the Fates say, Father. There will be an uprising, a fall, and a savior that _won't_ be you. Your own narcissism is blinding you. I want to believe that one day you'll see the truth, but we both know it will be too late once you finally do."

And with that, he left Zeus there on the balcony to wallow in his own vexation.


	2. ashes, ashes.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The beginning of the Divine War took countless lives and caused a familial divide unlike any other. Cam, Levi, and Freya got to see firsthand just how cruel their own loved ones could be.
> 
> [ tw: mention of a suicide attempt, mention of an abusive relationship from the past ]

When you're a child, you never get too upset at the world. Maybe you get a little huffy when your favorite shirt gets lost, you might be upset when someone tells you that you have to share your toys with the neighbor kids, but when you're that young, your main concerns are simple things, like chocolate milk and toys and cartoons. You're only worried about the little pieces of life's puzzle that you don't even _need_ in order to see the whole picture.

That's a luxury I never had. I _still_ desperately wish I had it, but at some point, my life had gone past the point of no return and ended up being far too messy to be luxurious in the slightest.

There's plenty of things in my life that I never got to do, and the biggest thing is that I never got to be a kid. Memories from preschool to middle school are mostly a blur anyway, and the years following that have been… _less than satisfying,_ to say the least. From age six and onward, I just couldn't catch a damn break. Being a proper kid was completely impossible and I stopped trying to act my age years ago.

When I was six, my mother "mysteriously passed away", but I wasn't _stupid._ My father liked to think I was naive and oblivious, but that wasn't the case. When he found out that I knew he did it, he turned to the friends he had on the inside of the police force. Friends who would break the law and cover up the evidence that would've proven his guilt. Friends that did just that and ensured that my mother's death went "unsolved".

That was the year I learned not to trust those in positions of authority.

The next year, I thought I was starting to go nuts. I started seeing monsters from the corners of my vision, started hearing my own voice call out to me from the dark hallways, started growing paranoid of things that weren't even there.

My teacher, Ms. Rose, was the first to notice my bizarre behavior. She told my dad that I was jumpier in class, that I would point to empty spaces and scream for "them" to go away, that I would break down into tears when she tried talking to me. He said I had an active imagination and that I was just a shy kid. She didn't push the issue, and it was eventually forgotten.

Now, if my single digits didn't already sound bad enough, the teenage years weren't any better. In fact, they were probably ten times worse.

By fifteen, I was already incredibly messed up. I ran with the wrong crowd, did the wrong things, the whole shebang. At some point, I wanted less to do with the _whole_ shebang and figured I could live my life with about ⅓ of it. 

And then my "boyfriend" at the time tried to kill me for wanting to leave, so I settled for dealing with ⅔ of it instead. You know, the mathy part of a relationship where you learn to settle for trading your safety for the approval of an older guy. The kind of stuff a kid that age shouldn't even know about.

Eventually, things got to be too much. Fast forward to my seventeenth birthday, where I tried to take my own life and found out the hard way that _I couldn't die._

Did you know that when you're immortal, a gravity-induced neck snap won't kill you, but it _will_ mess up your vocal chords and send bone fragments into your esophagus? It's wild. I definitely do not recommend it. Trust me, if I could give it a negative five star rating, I would.

That same night, I found out that the people I believed to be my biological parents had been my _adoptive_ parents. Within hours of getting a failed hug from a noose, I learned that I was actually some kind of teenage god. Cameron, the child of Hermes and Apate. Somehow, those polar opposites ended up being attracted to each other just long enough for me to be conceived. But I guess I was a little bundle of mischief even at four months old, and I got tossed from Olympus for being a nuisance. That's how I ended up with my adoptive parents.

Actually, let me rephrase that: that's how I ended up with my adoptive mother and the dickbag who liked to _say_ he was my dad. The details are as ugly as they are unimportant.

Later that same year, I finally started getting answers for things.

I learned that I was stillborn, so part of a literal chaos entity embedded itself in my soul to keep me alive. As a result, I ended up with powerful illusionary abilities and a broken body. I couldn't eat, didn't need to sleep, and didn't need to breathe because, in all honesty, I was a walking corpse.

I also found out that the reason I pointed at empty air as a kid was because my unknown abilities had kicked in after mom's death, so my own shattered mental state caused my mind to trick itself. So I was really seeing these things, but no one else could. I learned that the reason I broke down when my teacher spoke to me was because my mom always smelled like roses. It was just unlucky that Ms. Rose had the name she did. Nothing too extravagant there, just unfortunate word association.

And that voice that would talk to me at night? That was the thing keeping me alive, trying to communicate with me. My own thoughts weren't safe from whatever was living in my head, but surprisingly, I wasn't too bothered by their presence. Yes, it did threaten to take full control of my body on multiple different occasions and force me to visualize my own death at least twice a week, but back then, I was so desperate for a friend that I didn't even care. If they were stuck with me, that meant they were a friend.

I started calling them Soren. They never told me if they approved of that name, but it stuck anyway.

Up on Olympus, I learned I wasn't alone. I was introduced to lots of different family members who I both feared and adored. Among those family members were a select few who struggled with shards of Chaos, just like I did. So, like any traumatized teenager would, I latched onto those who were like me because they _understood._

Aside from my various problems, I enjoyed most of the time I spent there. I had to tell my teachers I planned to finish off high school through "home-schooling" (because there wasn't a single school out there that would've believed I was doing my schooling on Olympus) and still managed to snatch a diploma before I started living there permanently.

The kids there were split into three groups depending on who their parents were. House Armosia was for kids who had Zeus, Hera, Apollo, or Ares as at least one of their parents. Artemis and Hestia didn't have any kids, but they were the guardians of that house. Everyone knew "guardian" was just a fancy word for "mentor and babysitter", but no one had the courage to say it.

House Erynia was for the kids who had Poseidon, Aphrodite, Demeter, Hephaestus, or Hermes as one of their parents. Athena was our ~~babysitter~~ guardian, and trust me when I say _nothing_ got past her. She did her job a little too well.

House Kenaris was basically the group of kids who didn't have any of the Olympians as parents, but had at least one god as a parent. This also included humans who were given a small portion of a god's power for whatever reason. Not everyone with gifted abilities ended up on Olympus, but if they did, they had to stay there until they had full control of their abilities. Otherwise, they were too dangerous and knew too much. While this was the most vague and messy group, it was also the _largest._ Iris, Khione, and Persephone were the guardians of this group. Sometimes they had help, but they still had their hands full with a plethora of rambunctious, contrary kids.

While I lived there, I was part of House Erynia. There wasn't really a difference from the other houses, but since Hermes was my dad, that's where I ended up. I managed to figure out how the Hell a sword worked and was told to make a personal fighting style all on my own for reasons no one bothered to elaborate on. All they said was that we had to learn how to use a weapon.

In hindsight, we should've known that was a red flag.

My parents expected me to combine the style I created with the abilities that I barely even knew how to use. The one they specifically wanted me to perfect was one called "auratic comprehension". That sounds super professional and sophisticated, but no one ever called it that. We usually referred to it as just "aura manipulation", because that's really all it was. It's simple power, in theory. I can see the life forces of every living thing around me and I can amplify existing emotions or grab onto their aura and move them around by linking my own aura with theirs.

No need to say it's cool. Trust me, I already know.

Unfortunately, bad control of that power meant that I accidentally ended up hurting a lot of people. Luckily, they all forgave me for that.

Mostly.

For a long time, things seemed like they would stay as calm as they were. I had a daily routine, I met up with friends every day, I was threatened by Zeus himself a few times each week, and I was living comfortably. But then, a week before my nineteenth birthday, my new normal life was flipped upside down so hard it would've made Will Smith proud.

With seemingly no explanation, the Olympians started a war among themselves. They were split into two sides, with one side being led by Zeus and the other being led by Poseidon. By Zeus' side stood the majority of students from House Armosia and the gods associated with them. On Poseidon's side were the students of House Erynia and their gods. Whoever was leftover in House Kenaris was given a choice of Armosia or Erynia. "Neither" was not an option.

As expected, that split up my friend group, too. A parental divide always does.

Zeus' team was made up of a bunch of kids, most of which were around my age. While they were a part of House Armosia, they were more commonly known as the _Loyalists_ after the war started. My friends Adria, Henry, Olivia, Abel, and Advika all stood with him for reasons we weren't told. Keaton, a kid from House Kenaris, sided with them too.

The _other_ half of my friend group, which consisted of Dorian, Levi, Jasper, Ophelia, and Zoey, all stood with me on Poseidon's side. A girl from House Kenaris, Freya, took our side as well. The Loyalists refused to call us by our house name, so they bitterly called us _Rebels_ instead.

Not sure why they thought that'd be an insulting name since _"The Rebels"_ sounded like a cool punk band that came into the spotlight straight from the shady alleys of Chicago, but I digress.

None of us knew why we were forced to choose sides, but the Olympians made it clear that we weren't allowed to remain a neutral party. We either chose a side, or were left alone to fend for ourselves.

Now it wasn't hard to figure out that "safety in numbers" was the obvious choice there. We teamed up because the only other option was death, and _none_ of us wanted to die.

I know, I was shocked, too.

We thought the Loyalists attacked Olympus first, and it didn't take long for every single room to be tainted by blood. Acidic splotches of colorful blood decorated the ruined sanctuary as the metallic clanging of swords and spears and axes pounded in our ears. My orders were simple: I wasn't qualified to fight, so I had to help get the younger kids to safety.

And as the textbook anti-child douche, it goes without saying that I wasn't too happy with a bunch of grubby fingers poking my face and pulling my hair and yanking my hands all over the place. But I'm not _heartless,_ so I did my job the best I could. Levi and Freya jumped at the chance to help me move a small group of six kids from Mount Olympus down to a secure location at the base of the mountain. The rest of the kids were supposed to be brought down later, in similarly sized groups. I was thankful I only had a smaller group. It was easier to handle that way.

Our orders were to take shelter in Litochoro, one of the towns at the base of the mountain. That's what we were told to do, and yet the scenery down there wasn't any better for children to see.

The villages of Vrontou and Dion were completely destroyed, and it looked like the majority of Litochoro was up in flames. Faint screams clawed at my ears like nails on a chalkboard, and the smell of smoke didn't make things any better.

"What happened down here…?" Levi wondered aloud.

I didn't have it in me to respond. I didn't know _how._ But the look on their face told me that they knew exactly what had happened.

We thought they started their attack in Olympus. We were _wrong._ The lesser Loyalists might've targeted Olympus, but the gods themselves had started their war _outside_ of it, near the towns. They'd gotten humans involved in their pointless war, and their lives were being taken from them before they could react. Not only had they forced their kids into their fight, they also wreaked havoc among the innocents of Greece.

And for what? Just because they could?

I couldn't breathe, but I wasn't sure if it was because I just didn't need to or if the smoke and panic were teaming up against me. I couldn't make out anything solid through the blur of my vision, but I didn't need to see the deaths of civilians in order to know it was happening.

From where I stood on the mountaintop, I felt everything from the smoldering villages below. I felt the fear, I felt the panic, I felt each and every single life free itself from the fleshy prisons that held them hostage.

Empathy isn't my specialty, and everyone I know will tell you that. But when you can unwillingly feel the emotions of every single living thing in a huge area like I can, you don't exactly need a PhD in empathy to feel bad.

As I stared down at the ruined towns and the scorching remnants of life, my heart ached for the kids with us. Things would never be the same for them again. Just like me, they'd been cheated out of a proper childhood.

"Cam, I don't want to rush you, but we have to get the children to safety. We have to _hurry."_ The unusual roughness in Freya's voice brought me out of my thoughts. There wasn't a doubt in my mind that she knew I was stressed beyond belief, but I managed to put on my bravest facade, just to keep her concern to a minimum. I knew she'd worry if I didn't at least _look_ like I was okay. So I tried to pretend like the world wasn't spinning in fiery circles around me and that I wasn't wobbling with every step I took.

With a tiny wrist held firmly in each of my hands, I marched ahead of the others. If no one else wanted to take charge and push ahead, then I'd do it for them. My legs wanted nothing more than to rest just long enough for me to empty the nothingness of my stomach onto the rock of the mountain, but I couldn't stop moving. Not when I had a job to do. Not when other people's lives were in danger.

High above us, the Keres circled us with their beady eyes and gnashing teeth and razor-sharp claws. My feet came to a halt, and I pulled the kids closer to me, ignoring the twisting nausea in my gut. Omens of death were commonplace, but the Keres were something else entirely. They didn't show up for just _any_ death. They showed up for the bloody, violent deaths that happened on the battlefield. From our time on Olympus, we had learned that they never killed. They **couldn't** kill. They could only take the souls from people whose death was sealed.

The mountain we had to traverse wasn't a battlefield, but their presence meant that it was about to be one. I didn't want to stay around long enough to be a participant.

From high in the sky, I felt the enemy before I saw her. The aura was angry and pulsating and _red._ The way the colors of her pure white pegasus and silver spear were painted against the crimson backdrop of a sky should've been beautiful, yet the sight was far from pleasant.

Enter Adria, the favorite daughter of Ares and Aphrodite.

Her pegasus' feathered wings flapped in the smoke, and with each passing second she grew closer. Levi and Freya hadn't seen her yet. There was no time to run, no time to find anywhere to hide before she got to us.

Her spear, Tythereus, was a unique one in that if anyone else had their hands on it, it would cause severe pain to the wielder. It was deadly and terrifying, but it was also her only weapon. Her entire fighting style was useless without it. That said, anyone who was hit with it probably wasn't going to live to tell the tale. As a master marksman, it was unlikely that she would miss once she took aim.

But I had two advantages over her: strategy and _illusions._

Though I was beyond terrified, I feigned ignorance and kept watch from the corner of my eye. I could tell she saw the illusion I set up while everyone around me remained blissfully unaware.

The moment her spear lodged itself hard into the solid rock of the mountain, right where the illusion had been standing, I leapt to action.

"You're all camouflaged, don't worry about me, just get down the mountain _now."_ I waved the illusion away and pushed the kids beside me towards Levi. Pulling the spear from the stone, I immediately felt pain course through every fiber of my being. Every bit of blood that pumped through my veins burned like the sun itself was coursing through me, but I couldn't let go. "You don't have time to waste. Take a shortcut if you need to, just get out of here!"

Thousands of questions died on Freya's tongue and I could see the fear in Levi's eyes, but neither of them said a word. Instead, Levi hurried down the mountain with the kids and Freya a short distance behind. I peeled my eyes away from them and gave my full focus to Adria. I had to believe I hid them well enough. They hadn't covered much distance yet, and the sound was much harder to cloak when I was in too much pain to focus. Mere seconds after my silent panic, her pegasus halted in front of me, wings fluttering to a full stop as my friend stared down at me with a smirk. From the corner of my eye, I could see Freya looking back at me, but Adria didn't seem to notice.

 _Good,_ I thought. _Makes this easier for me._

"I think you've got something of mine, Cam." There was nothing malicious about the words themselves, but her tone was enough to strike fear into any man's heart.

"This old thing?" I shook the spear in my hand. "Surely a classy individual like yourself knows that spears are disgustingly old-fashioned, yeah?"

Despite the uncomfortable tension between us, she laughed. "Ever the jokester, aren't you? Normally, I'd love to hear your standup routine, but I'm afraid I can't stay. I have some lost sheep to round up."

I hummed and rapped my fingers repeatedly on the pole of the spear. "Oh, you're a shepherd now? Pretty sure that's my dad's thing, not yours."

"Cameron." She huffed and held out her hand expectantly. "Hand it over. I have no business with you."

"Nope, not so fast, Princess," I spat, shifting the spear behind my back. "When you tried to hit me just then, I became your business. Nice _miss,_ by the way. Was that your first failure?"

Her olive eyes narrowed and her fingers curled tight around the reins. If she was having fun earlier, she definitely wasn't anymore.

"I was told to leave you alone and retrieve the others. No harm will come to them, I promise you. But you know I can't return to Olympus without Tythereus in my hand."

"Really? So it's, like, an ID of sorts? That sucks. Guess you'll just have to come and take it back."

"I refuse to play these games with you, Cameron."

"Come on, Adria. You know multiplayer games don't work with just one person."

Her aura still throbbed a violent red, but I couldn't have been more thankful for that. The stronger someone felt an emotion, the easier it was to manipulate and latch onto. The angrier she got, the quicker I could put the second part of my plan into action.

With the free hand at my side, I linked my aura to hers, and I amplified every bit of anger she held within her. Then, when I could see the fury begin to contort her features into a snarl, I yanked the aura off to the side and forced her to the hard ground.

In those few seconds I knew it would take for her to get up, I forced multiple extra decoys into reality and cloaked myself as a precaution. She'd have to struggle with finding the right Cam between multiple fake ones for a short while. She wouldn't even notice the real one wasn't there until I was long gone.

In the distance, far beyond what I could see, I felt more auras draw closer. Nine others, with five of them equally as ready to fight as Adria was. There was no question that those five were her backup. Their auras were identical to those of my Loyalist (ex)friends. The extra four, though, were calmer and less violent. Someone must've caught word of the Loyalists gathering and sent Rebel backup as well. As much as I wanted to stay and offer assistance, I wouldn't have stood a chance if I was around when they all showed up.

So, with what little energy I had left, I held Adria's spear tight in my hands and pushed my legs to the limit by sprinting down the mountain. With every passing second, more pounding pain pulsed in my arms and stomach. Every thudding step I took felt like needles in my ankles and it only got worse once I reached the flat ground at the base of the mountain. The sight of smoldering buildings, the sound of crackling flames, and the smell of burning bodies overflowed my senses so fast I swore I was going to be sick any second.

One day, the same village had smelled like flowers and wet grass and various kinds of food. The next, it was reduced to a hellish nightmare of death and despair. I always said change couldn't happen overnight, but for once, I decided to admit I had been wrong.

Finally, I saw them there, in the less shattered outskirts of Litochoro. Levi, Freya, and the kids, each one of them alive and mostly well. Once I finally slowed to a stop in front of them, I didn't waste a second in pulling them all into the tightest hug I could manage.

"Is that Adria's spear…?" Freya piped up once I'd let them all pull out of my arms. "Why do _you_ have it?"

"Yeah, yeah, it's hers." I fought back the urge to vomit and sank down against the stone wall of a crumbling home. One of the kids, a boy no older than ten or so, sat down next to me to use my arm as a pillow. I couldn't even bring myself to be mad that a child dared to touch me. The reality of the situation was finally starting to numb my emotions. "She said they wouldn't let her into Olympus if she didn't have it with her, which implies they're using Olympus for _something._ They wouldn't need solid identification if they didn't plan to keep using the area."

"Well, yeah, but now that's another problem," Levi began, shifting their weight from one foot to the other. "Because she'll keep coming after you until she gets her spear back." The others nodded in agreement.

"I know, and that's the downside, obviously. But chances are that if she can't prove that it's actually her, they won't listen to what she says. They can't trust her warnings or anything." I paused to rest my head against the wall and let the spear rest at my side. The pole had left an itchy red mark on my palm. Once it was exposed to the open air, it felt like someone ran a fresh burn wound under freezing cold water. It was a blessing that my body could heal it all on its own.

"So...what is the good thing to come out of this then?" The concern in Freya's tone was hard to miss.

"The good thing is that we can use her new unreliability to our advantage. Like a 'girl crying wolf' thing. Once we regroup with the others, we can grow a bigger force and take back Olympus once they don't expect us. Then, we can start restoring peace and avenge everyone who either already died or will later on."

All at once, I felt the auras of those around me drop into rainbows of sorrow and fear. No one wanted to say it, but they all knew someone would die up on that mountain. They must've seen the Keres, too.

"But first," I started again, hoping to move away from the inevitable mood drop I knew we'd have, "we have to put distance between us and them. A _lot_ of it."

Freya was the first to speak up afterwards. "How exactly do we do that?"

"You both know hiding and running is kind of my thing, but clearly nowhere in Greece is safe right now. That's why we just have to get to another country."

The way all of them stared at me in pure confusion was far more humorous than it should've been.

Levi had every right to be skeptical. "How do you expect us to find a boat? And do you think any of us would even know how to _sail_ said boat?"

"We won't need a boat, first of all. There's no need for one when you can travel instantly."

Now, here's the thing. A lot of my abilities were iffy to use, and one in particular was practically brand new at that point: rift creation. To make matters worse, it technically wasn't my power. It was Soren's. And Soren wasn't exactly the nicest chaos entity to work with. Rifts allowed me to travel from any two places that I'd seen before–counting actual areas that I've seen in pictures–simply by stepping through a hole that was created by pulling open fragments of reality and connecting them to each other like magic global doorways. It was _incredibly_ helpful, but I was told not to use it too much. Apparently, each time I used it, Soren gained a bit more control over me. My mother, the one I inherited said ability from in the first place, said that if they managed to gain full control over me for too long, that was it. I was done for. They'd get to pilot my body like a sick puppeteer and I'd be trapped inside my own mind, seeing everything through my eyes as usual but being unable to act on my own.

And yet, if it gave the others a better chance of survival, I'd risk it. I knew they'd worry about me using a power that would inevitably kill me, but it wasn't like they knew just how dangerous the power was to use. If I didn't tell them, they wouldn't worry. Piece of cake.

"I'll just make rifts that let us move freely between Greece and… Wherever it is we decide to stay. Anyone have any ideas on where to go?"

A few quiet seconds passed between us before Levi broke the silence. "New York?"

Now it was _my_ turn to be baffled. "Levi, you want us to make a semi-permanent camp…in _New York?"_

"Wait, I think that's a good idea," Freya chimed in. "I lived in New York for a long time, I know where all the good hiding spots are. Both in the city and in the rural areas!"

"Yeah, I lived there for a little while, too," Levi added. "The majority of us did. I don't think any of the Loyalists ever did, so it'd be unfamiliar territory for them. Also, the city areas aren't too open, so it'd be easier for us to hide and even better if you could camouflage us. 'Cause you're really good at that."

That just wasn't fair, and they knew that. Flattery didn't work on most people, but it sure as Hell worked on me. Plus, compliments aside, they made good points. My main concern, though, was whether or not New York would stay standing once the Loyalists found us there...

I wanted nothing more than to sit and talk about the pros and cons of every option, but I was exhausted and the flames weren't doing Freya any favors. As someone whose specialty was ice, snow, and everything cold, a burning town was the worst place to be. Not to mention that the smell of burning corpses was negatively affecting all of us. The quicker we left, the better.

"Okay, okay." I rubbed my temples and huffed, eyes squeezing shut to block out the bright oranges and reds of the flames still burning in the town. I couldn't have been more grateful that they chose to rest in a place just far enough from the flames so the temperature was somewhat tolerable. I probably would have ended up passing out if the heat had mixed with the pain. "New York it is, I guess. But we have to come back here sometime soon to patrol and look for the others." The others collectively nodded in agreement. With a pained groan, I forced myself back onto my feet and took the spear back into my hand, cursing as pain flooded my body once again. "Then, once we get everything figured out there, I can find something to keep this damn thing in so I can finally stop touching it."


End file.
